Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Glenn Beck sure inhabits a weird quadrant of the universe. It's one
in which you can switch, as he did on his show yesterday, from pleading
with his viewers to stop lumping each other into political frames that
are unfair -- especially lumping Tea Partiers in with neo-Nazis -- and
then leaping to lump one of the most mainstream Latino advocacy
organizations, the National Council of La Raza, in the same "box" with
violent Mexican drug gangs.

How he gets there is actually an amazing convolution of logic that
not only defies gravity but reality -- particularly when he explains
that the neo-Nazis marching in Los Angeles last weekend, under the aegis
of the National Socialist Movement, are Socialists, you see, and therefore "Progressive Right".

He later adds: "The neo-Nazis -- National Socialists -- you'd put that on the Left in America."

Excuse me, but as someone who actually covered neo-Nazis as a journalist here in the Pacific Northwest at a time when Glenn Beck was perfecting a shock-jock schtick, I have to call bullshit on this.

Having been to neo-Nazi rallies, having covered the demise of the
Aryan Nations, and having interviewed both leaders and followers of the
neo-Nazis, I can assert without any hesitation that there's nothing
remotely "progressive" about neo-Nazis of any stripe, whether they're
NSM or AN or White Aryan Resistance or Hammerskins. They're all
extremely hardcore far-right-wingers who are in many ways primarily
driven by a deep animus for "progressive" values, particularly
multiculturalism, civil rights, internationalism, and union organizing.

[T]his is palpable nonsense. What makes these people
right-wing extremists is that they not only adopt right-wing political
positions, they take them to their most extreme logical (if that's the
word for it) outcome:

They not only oppose abortion, they believe abortion providers should be killed.

They not only believe that liberal elites control the media and
financial institutions, but that a conniving cabal of Jews is at the
heart of this conspiracy to destroy America.

They not only despise Big Government, they believe it is part of a New World Order plot to enslave us all.

They not only defend gun rights avidly, they stockpile them out of
fear that President Obama plans to send in U.N. troops to take them away
from citizens.

They not only oppose homosexuality as immoral, they believe gays and lesbians deserve the death penalty.

They not only oppose civil-rights advances for minorities, they also believe a "race war" is imminent, necessary and desirable.

And on and on. Every part of the agenda of the agenda of right-wing
extremists is essentially an extreme expression of conservative
positions. And that, fundamentally, is why American fascism always has
been and always will be, properly understood, an unmistakable phenomenon
of the Right.

Nonetheless, according to Beck, "if you're in this picture, you're a danger to society." Including NCLR.

But then he suddenly and bizarrely switched to a plea for people not to put each other into unfair "boxes":

Beck: This is why, see, you can't stand there. You can't
stand where they're putting you. Because they're putting you in a box
with Nazis.

And Democrats? You're being put into boxes with Communists! That's not who you are.

We have to stop with the R and D stuff. We have to stop with the
Republicans and Democrats stuff. And I know, I mean, I've done my fair
share of this. We've gotta stop! We've gotta stop.

Then, of course, he promptly turned around in hsi very next segment
and did exactly that -- placed a mainstream Latino organization like La
Raza in "a box" with drug gangs and neo-Nazis!

Beck: La Raza -- I mean, you want to talk about a racist
statement -- if I called an organization "The Race" -- Wow! That's --
whew!

Anyway, La Raza supports drivers licenses for illegal aliens. I'm not
for that. Um -- they oppose any cooperation between local law
enforcement and federal authorities such as immigration and customs
enforcement enforcing U.S. immigration laws. Why wouldn't you want them
working together?

Then you have MS-13. This is a bloodthirsty -- this is a notoriously
violent drug gang, who has often left behind dismembered corpses,
decapitated heads -- I mean, it's -- bad.

It makes my head hurt just trying to figure out where to start with
this, beyond the obvious hypocrisy and the strangeness of Beck thinking
that opposing certain immigration policies is comparable to beheading
drug-gang members.

Let's start with the bad facts: Beck tries to argue that the
translation of "La Raza" is "The Race" and therefore NCLR is innately
racist. But that's only if you're utterly ignorant of Spanish or
deliberately want to mistranslate.

"La Raza," as the Wikipedia entry
accurately explains, is correctly translated not as "the race" but "the
people," since it refers generically to "the people of Latin America"
(or more narrowly, "of Mexico"). It's generically a multiracial term,
not a racist one.

Its stated focus is on reducing poverty and
discrimination, and improving opportunities for Hispanics. According to
the organization's website, it is "the largest national Hispanic civil
rights and advocacy organization in the United States" and "serves all
Hispanic subgroups in all regions of the country". NCLR receives funding
from philanthropic organizations, such as the Ford Foundation, and
corporations such as Citigroup and Wal-Mart. NCLR serves its
constituency by means of its Affiliates, nearly 300 community-based
organizations.

People like Beck like to claim that NCLR supports illegal
immigration, but it in fact is outspoken on this matter. As NCLR
president Janet Murguia put it:
"First, as a sovereign nation, the United States has the right to
determine who comes and who stays. . . [It also] has a right to consider
enforcement at a variety of levels, including border enforcement,
interior enforcement, and workplace enforcement. . . We support
enforcement...[because] as Americans, we recognize it's the right thing
to do."

Funny how Beck only gets upset when his beloved Tea Partiers get put
into the kind of box he regularly puts his targets into, isn't it?

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.